


Killing is Company

by kittydesade



Category: Henry VI - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 00:59:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A soliloquy from Richard III, reflecting on his greater and house-specific family legacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Killing is Company

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_alchemist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/gifts).



It has been said, and written, and foretold  
By royal sage and country wit alike  
That war is but a sickness in the blood  
Of men, not found in any bird or beast,  
A tragedy unique to those who think  
And measure out the worth of each man's life  
As though all life were bound in grains of sand  
To be apportioned, one glass to the next.  
A limitless good span of time is not  
The lottery of man nor beast, though we  
Alone may feel the torrid sting of it.  
This sickness courses through our veins like plague  
Spurring us with all the buboes 'neath  
Our flesh, it pulls us to demeanèd acts  
And to consort with those we otherwise  
Would shun for vagrants, half-wits, the corrupt  
And twisted both of body and of soul.  
And yet when we indulge our blood-born lusts  
We find our works are given o'er to doom  
To make a charnel house of our estate  
And reap the cursed rewards of villainy.

I am descended from a line of kings,  
Bloated bodies, whores of state who spread their  
Presence on the altar of their _Potens  
Rex_, crying _droit de seigneur_ to any  
Who dare take offense to their excesses.  
My father murdered women in their beds,  
Stole traitor nobles from the careless king  
And put to death by pitch and flame the young  
Pucelle, that foolish virgin sorceress  
Of France. Our father's father overthrew  
The upstart barons and their Montfort prince,  
Burned the Scottish fields and pursued their  
'Heritors to every corner. Still and  
So, before him there was Richard of the  
Crusades, so they called him, Coeur de Lion,  
And though the history books will say he was  
A great and noble man to liberate  
The Holy Land, his reign was plentiful  
In corpses. Such are the examples  
To which I must adhere, a true born son  
Of the ducal house of York and of the  
Accursèd bloody line Plantagenet.

By this, by right, and by the madness yet  
Squatting in the depths of Henry's addled  
Brain, waiting for its moment to repeat  
The follies of our long departed fathers,  
I must take an account of numbered foes  
And lords still drunk on opportunities  
Already slipped too far from their control  
To be within their grasp. Somerset and  
Suffolk both are creatures of the weak-willed  
Queen, who either do her bidding or are  
Else bidding her to dance to every tune  
They set. While Gloucester plays a game of no  
Allegiance but his own, he therefore can  
Be subject to no favor and no aid  
And must from that unwise and reckless stance  
Be toppled, by my father or by the  
Queen's careful lords. Salisbury and Warwick  
Have aligned themselves unto my father's  
Fate, and though I do not trust their smiling  
Faces and their hidden hands, I must make  
Smiles in return and play the part of  
The beloved second son. When all is  
Tallied up and the white rose sits fixèd  
On the throne I will ensure myself of  
Their true leanings and take myself along  
To give them due reward, in sums of gold  
Or in a Tower Chamber, as they choose.  
Such are the fates available to us,  
The crown, the court, or else the chopping block  
And all our issue disinherited  
With bloody prejudice. It has been known  
That Lancaster has flourished in the lapse  
Of Henry's courtesy, which Suffolk then  
Did use to gain the heart and thus the will  
Of that most useless and inconstant man.  
But York will overtake the scarlet rose  
And claim the rightful place of our descent.

I visited a witch of some repute  
Who claimed to see a crown upon my head  
My enemies laid waste before my feet,  
And all the troubles that besieged my house  
Vanished as the mist before the breeze.  
I give no credit to a witch whose eyes  
Are fixed upon the purse she might expect,  
And yet I cannot fault the witch who calls  
Me out by name and tells me some account  
Of boyhood jaunts and of a dog that laid  
Along the trestle of my bed. And if  
One might see back into the shrouded past  
To places one has never before seen  
One might well see to what is yet to come.  
She prophesied a victory to last  
For all my days, and yet if all my days  
May be enumerated in the chimes  
Of funeral bells or counted no more than  
The petals on a rose it would then be  
A shallow victory. And yet, if there  
Were by some miracle a God who cared  
To recompense me for the outer shell  
Reflecting all the base corruption of  
My royal lineage and my warring house,  
He might incline himself as well to grant  
Me all the glory that my father lacked.

If I am not a man to idle by  
The way and whistle to the clouds that pass  
I must then answer all the insults flung  
Into the face of York, Richard, and all  
My kin. The house of Lancaster has too  
Long held our will subordinate to their  
Unreasoned pleasures, too long given us  
The scraps from their dogs' table, and I say  
We'll have no more of it. If they will glut  
Themselves on the humiliation of  
The white, then we will bathe ourselves, drink deep,  
And coat the fields of England in the blood  
Of the red rose of Lancaster. If they  
Must make a battlefield of the king's court  
Then it will be a battle they regret  
To the last godforsaken man and child.  
Until that witch-queen's silken robes are turned  
To widow's weeds, and by the fickle lords  
Of Somerset and Suffolk she is cast  
Aside, until the lack-wit Henry's lapse  
Is rectified and till my family's place  
Restored upon the throne I see, I will  
Not bide, I will not stay my hand, I will  
Not cherish any mercy in my heart.  
I will have blood in rivers pouring down  
Till every man opposing me is drowned.


End file.
